This invention relates to a new and improved means for determining the mass of fluid passing through a conduit in a fluid system, and, more particularly, to a single phase mass rate indicator of a liquid passing through a particular conduit including a new and improved density compensator and a counting means.
As is perhaps well known, turbine and other types of volumetric flow meters have been used to measure the rate of fluid passing through a conduit. The angular speed of the turbine is determined by the fluid flow rate, and therefore the angular speed of the turbine indicates the fluid flow rate. Such volumetric flow meters are calibrated to read directly in volumetric units. When the fluid being measured has a constant density, such volumetric flow meters can be calibrated directly in terms of mass units. When the density is a variable, the mass units cannot be calculated directly from the angular speed of a turbine. Most fluids decrease in density as the temperature increases. Therefore, the mass flow may be obtained by calculating the volumetric flow, measuring the temperature of the fluid, calculating the density of the fluid at the particular temperature, and multiplying the volumetric flow by the ratio of density at the fluid temperature to the density at a particular reference temperature. The ratio of the density at the fluid temperature to the density at the reference temperature is called the density compensation factor.